Rats, mice, cockroaches and ants have been found in wards, operating theatres and maternity units at some of Britain’s most famous hospitals. St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool are among more than 60 that have found pests and vermin.

Now health campaigners fear infections and disease could become rife. Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘There is a danger vermin and pests are going to bring diseases and infections into hospitals.

‘If mice droppings found their way into meals and food supplies it could result in patients ending up with gastroenteritis or salmonella. ‘That is the last thing you need if you are ill and no one wants to be bitten by rats.’

Roger Goss, co-director of Patient Concern, the watchdog for patients’ rights, said: ‘These incidents raise serious concerns about the standards of hygiene in some hospitals.’

The Mail on Sunday used freedom of information laws to obtain pest-control logs from more than 50 NHS Trusts. They cover the 12-month period from March 2010 to March 2011. In that time, Barts and the London NHS Trust recorded 34 cases of pests being found inside the three hospitals it controls. These included rats in a ward at Barts, an infestation of black ants in a heart failure clinic at the London Chest Hospital and cockroaches in a children’s ward at the Royal London Hospital. Several other trusts in the London area reported similar problems – including a dead mouse in a utility room at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

But the problem is not confined to the capital. The Heart of Birmingham NHS Trust listed 89 pest-control incidents in its three hospitals, and the Christie NHS Trust in Manchester logged 37. Colchester University Hospital NHS Trust listed ants in a children’s ward and an antenatal clinic among its 51 cases. And Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool reported ants and cockroaches on some of its wards.

The documents suggest negligence by staff may be to blame for some incidents. Staff at East Kent Hospitals Trust were reminded not to leave patio doors open after mice droppings were found in a foetal medicine unit. But the trusts denied standards of cleanliness were slipping. Several said they were vulnerable because they were in rural areas or their buildings were very old.

Sue Thomas, business development director at Alder Hey, insisted there had been only ‘isolated incidents’. The Barts and the London NHS Trust said areas affected were close to demolition work. And a Great Ormond Street spokesman said: ‘The trust takes hygiene seriously and pest control is part of that.’

Julie Bailey is still haunted by the death of her mother, who entered hospital a sprightly 86-year-old but was dropped by a nurse and never recovered. She sat by the bedside for six long weeks, holding the hand of her panic-stricken parent as her life ebbed away.

She was horrified by the gruesome scenes around her in a hospital that viewed itself as a national trailblazer: patients screaming in pain, but ignored by those meant to care for them; confused old people falling out of bed and left in soiled bedding; patients left hungry and thirsty.

‘Things were so bad I started feeding, watering and taking all the other patients to the lavatory,’ said Ms Bailey, a cafe owner. ‘It felt like it wasn’t just my mum I watched dying, but all the others as well.’

Her mother was among hundreds of victims of Britain’s worst health scandal this century, caused by a litany of failings and an obsession with targets at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. It stands as a shameful symbol of an NHS tied up in red tape and focused on management reorganisation losing touch with those entrusted into its care. It is also the most egregious example of how in the public sector you are not sacked for failure – but promoted to bigger and better things.

Unbelievably, two of those who oversaw the tragedy are now among the most senior National Health Service managers. One is Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive who is overseeing the health reforms planned by the Government. The other is Cynthia Bower, who succeeded him as chief executive of the strategic health authority (SHA) overseeing the two hospitals at the centre of the scandal, Stafford and Cannock Chase.

She is now the £200,000-a-year head of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the super-watchdog formed two years ago to safeguard standards in health and social care in England. SHAs manage local services on behalf of the Government. Yet despite her role to ensure highquality care, Ms Bower has admitted the situation at Stafford ‘wasn’t on my radar’. Last week, she was called to testify to the public inquiry into this awful chapter. Over two days, in a masterclass of buck-passing and obfuscation, she refused to accept any significant responsibility.

Pressed to admit that the SHA had failed in its duty to protect patients, she was unrepentant. To the amazement of observers, she said: ‘I don’t accept there was a serious failure. ‘I completely accept there was a serious failure in care and I accept there were signs we should have picked up, but I don’t accept there was a serious failure by the SHA, no.’

She has said the SHA responded to evidence of high death rates by commissioning a study from Birmingham University. As a result of this, the SHA concluded, wrongly, that Stafford’s problems were due to poor information systems, not poor medical care. She pointed out that an administrative merger had contributed to the failure. The man in charge of the merger? Sir David Nicholson.

Ms Bower expressed ‘deep sorrow’, admitting patients were ‘let down’, but said it was inevitable some died without good cause in hospitals. ‘Mistakes are made, people do die unnecessarily, however uncomfortable a truth that is’ – this from someone paid a small fortune to decide if thousands of hospitals, GPs and dentists are fit to practice.

Her stance shocked the victims’ families. Among them was Julie Bailey, who attended all 75 days of the inquiry. After her mother’s death in 2007, she joined other relatives to launch a pressure group called Cure The NHS to ensure other patients do not suffer in the same way.

At Stafford the alarm bells had included a critical report into clinical governance, damning patient surveys, warnings on staff shortages and a zero-star rating given by the CQC’s predecessor. It took a private research group to persuade the authorities to act.

One official estimate suggested between 400 and 1,200 ‘excess’ deaths between 2005 and 2008 alone. Wards were filthy and blood-splattered; heart monitors were switched off because nurses did not know how to use them; receptionists were left to determine needs of those arriving at A&E. Some patients were left screaming in agony, others grew so thirsty they drank water from vases.

Much of the blame must lie with those on the front line. But staff who spoke out were ignored, while doctors were preoccupied with waiting lists. Meanwhile, the management focused on financial targets and winning foundation hospital status.

The catastrophic failings reveal something rotten in the NHS. Some action has been taken, including the encouragement of whistleblowing and abolition of some targets.

But a series of reports has raised continuing issues of neglect, all too often involving the elderly and disabled. It seems strange that a pair of bureaucrats who failed to prevent hundreds dying in obscene conditions should end up in two of the top positions in the NHS. Their promotion smacks of contempt for patients.

It has long been my personal favourite. It is hard to believe that anybody with English blood in their veins would NOT respond to Blake’s wonderful words and the perfectly matched setting by Parry.

The writer below is cautious about the origin of the hymn but it is in fact a hymn to a heresy of sorts: The British Israel heresy. The British Israelites believe that the British are descended from the ten “lost” tribes of Israel. British Israel sentiment was strong in the congregation of my old Presbyterian church when I was a member there in the 60s.

The theology is irrelevant to a great work of patriotic art, however. If you are not moved by the video below you have either no heart or no English blood in your veins — JR

And did those feet in ancient time.Walk upon England’s mountains green:And was the holy Lamb of God,On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,Shine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded here,Among these dark Satanic Mills?

I will not cease from Mental Fight,Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:Till we have built Jerusalem,In England’s green & pleasant Land

Jerusalem, a hymn which has been banned, been an official anthem of the England football team and was once chosen by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Desert Island Discs, was hailed as one of the triumphs of today’s royal wedding.

American actor Wendell Pierce, star of the Wire and Treme, tweeted in America on what a ‘rousing version’ had been performed at Westminster Abbey. Comedian Dara O’Briain hailed it as the wedding’s ‘best tune’. It was trending on twitter within minutes of the service ending. James Phelps, the actor who starred as Fred Weasley in Harry Potter, wrote: “I think ‘Jerusalem’ is such a great hymn, amazing & very moving.”

The Prince of Wales was instrumental in helping Prince William and Kate Middleton choose the hymns for the service.

The hymn, which begins with the words “And did those feet in ancient time”, was first composed by William Blake in 1804 as an introduction to one of his most famous poems Milton.

The words were later written to music in 1916 by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, an English composer.

The verses are thought to have been based on a legend that Jesus came to England as a young boy and visited the town of Glastonbury, Somerset, where he established a second Jerusalem.

Christians have subsequently interpreted the meaning of the hymn in different ways and some believe that the word “Jerusalem” could be a metaphor for heaven.

It has been suggested that the hymn refers to Jesus coming to England and creating heaven amidst the “dark satanic mills”, the line at the end of the first verse, which has been interpreted as the industrial revolution.

In 1996 Gordon Brown made a memorable appearance on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in which he listed Jerusalem amongst his 10 favourite records.

In 2000 the hymn was made the official anthem of the England football team in the Euro 2000 tournament in Belgium and the Netherlands.

But it was banned from services at one of Britain’s foremost churches three years ago

The verses were banned in 2008 from being sung by choirs or congregations at Southwark Cathedral because the words do not praise God and are too nationalistic, according to senior clergy.

The Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, advised guests at a private memorial service that the hymn would not be sung because it was “not in the glory of God”.

Jerusalem had been banned before by clergymen who do not believe Blake’s poetry to be Christian.

In 2001 it was banned from the wedding of a couple in Manchester because the vicar deemed it to be too nationalistic and inappropriate to a marriage ceremony.

A groundsman who collared a vandal has received an apology from police after he was told he could be charged with assault by a 999 worker.

John Harvey bravely intervened after a gang of 12 yobs started vandalising a cricket club where he works in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and grabbed the main culprit.

The groundsman at Linden Park Cricket Club called police as he held the teenager telling cops he had caught the yob in the act and they should send an officer to arrest the teen.

But as the 47-year-old was desperately trying to keep hold of the teen as the other yobs – armed with sticks surrounded him – the police operator warned him he could be charged with assault.

Mr Harvey said: “I expected to be thoroughly supported by the police as a civilian and not rebuked. “I was expecting a response car immediately. I had restrained someone in the act of vandalism and she said ‘I must warn you, you are leaving yourself open to an assault charge’.” He added: “I told her ‘You’d better be quick, there are 12 of them. I might be one of your statistics’.

“She was reading screen prompts and insisting I gave my name and address and I said ‘With 12 kids in front of me?’ “That sort of thing has to be put by the wayside. I could have been in the morgue by now.”

Mr Harvey eventually hung up on the 999 operator and let the teen go as he was threatened by the other yobs – but put in a complaint to police about the attitude of the operator last week. And this week police apologised and said the 999 worker had been ‘spoken to’.

Chief Inspector Simon Black apologised and said: “The call taker who spoke with Mr Harvey acted correctly in the advice she gave but has been advised she could have shown a little more empathy to Mr Harvey’s situation.”

Lesbian kisses could be banned from television screens until late into the night under radical Government plans to stop children being exposed to ‘indecent’ images.

A review launched with the backing of David Cameron is expected to recommend that sexually suggestive scenes currently allowed before the 9pm watershed – such as the famous lesbian embrace on soap opera Brookside – should not be shown until later in the evening. A ban on explicit advertisements on high street billboards is also being considered.

The inquiry is being led by Mothers’ Union chief executive Reg Bailey. It was launched last year after the Prime Minister – himself the father of young children – warned that exposing youngsters to adult themes can ‘take away their innocence’.

Mr Bailey is likely to focus on a toughening-up of the watershed rules. A source close to the inquiry said: ‘It is hard to protect children in the internet and mobile-phone age but we have to do something.

‘For some parents, what has been considered acceptable in the past – such as that Brookside kiss – is not appropriate for children to see early in the evening.’

That scene in 1994 was the first-ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss. After a storm of protest from viewers, it was removed from Brookside’s weekend omnibus edition. However, Coronation Street and EastEnders have since featured similar scenes.

Sources also suggested that raunchy dance routines, such as those by pop stars Christina Aguilera and Rihanna on last year’s X Factor final, could also fall foul of tougher watershed rules.

Currently, all programmes put out between 5.30am and 9pm must be suitable for children aged under 15. Sexual scenes are banned before the watershed unless there is a ‘serious educational purpose’. After 9pm, broadcasters are allowed to screen more adult themes.

Calls to beef up the laws, which were originally devised in the Sixties, are likely to be opposed by film-makers, who argue that the threshold is obsolete. And three years ago, MPs warned that the growth of TV channel websites, on which programmes can be seen at any time of day, had already made the 9pm limit unworkable.

Mr Bailey is also understood to be looking at a ban on sexually explicit advertisements in public places. The source added: ‘Some of those huge poster advertisements for bras and knickers leave precious little to the imagination and they are there for all our children to see. ‘It’s not unreasonable to want to take action against them.’

And Mr Bailey is examining a crackdown on internet pornography by enabling parents to ask web service providers to block obscene websites ‘at source’ rather than relying on parental controls.

The Department for Education, which is overseeing the review, said: ‘We look forward to receiving Reg Bailey’s recommendations.’

British teachers are well-paid but many do not deliver value for money

Katharine Birbalsingh

How much do you think a teacher earns? The more I talk to people, the more I realise that the public think teachers are really poor.

It has come as quite a surprise for them to learn that hundreds of head teachers earn more than £100,000 per year, which is partly why the NASUWT teaching union was yesterday calling for more transparency in their salaries.

Once upon a time, of course, teachers did earn a pittance. But the recent Labour government changed all that. While it was in power, spending on education doubled; it now costs more than £80 billion a year to educate (rather badly) our lovely children. An ordinary London teacher, if good, can become an advanced skills teacher and earn well over £50,000 a year. A head of department or head of year doesn’t even have to be good, and they’ll be paid between £40,000 and £50,000. Assistant and deputy heads earn between £50,000 and £75,000, and heads can make just over £100,000.

For those teachers outside the capital, pay is slightly lower and for those in primary a little lower still, but no one is complaining. In my entire career as a teacher, I never heard a colleague complain about their pay.

I was always baffled when people would say that my motivation in speaking out about the education system was to sell my book. The £10,000 or so that I will eventually earn from it cannot compare with what I have lost in salary after being forced to leave my job. The fact is that most teachers are far richer than most writers.

And that, in my opinion, is a good thing: teaching is among the most important of our professions. It’s a shame the public, on the whole, doesn’t feel the same way. Would anyone question a surgeon being paid well? No. And that’s because we have respect for doctors. Teachers, however, get a far harsher deal.

But even I’m struck by the quantity – and quality – of executive heads who are earning far more than £100,000 per year. One primary school head is reported to be earning some £276,000. Now, while this may be the exception, there is a disturbing lack of transparency about how and why they earn so much. This is mainly because they are drawing several different salaries for doing a variety of jobs – often rather badly because, frankly, no one can be in many schools and many training institutions and many conferences, all at the same time, while maintaining high standards at them all.

There are a handful of heads and executive heads who are worth every penny. They are extraordinarily talented, run outstanding schools, and do what most ordinary teachers can only dream about. But there are others, and I include deputies and assistants, who aren’t even worth that ordinary teacher’s salary.

And it is from these examples that public dissatisfaction with the profession festers. If our schools were churning out well-read, numerate, polite and charming young men and women, the public might not be quite so put out to learn that teachers are being so handsomely paid.

But half of our country’s children do not manage to get five GCSEs with English and Maths; 84 per cent of them do not manage to get five C grades (not As but Cs) in academic subjects such as Maths, English, Science, History or Geography and a foreign or ancient language. Should we really be rewarding their schools for inadequately educating them?

If the statistics are to be believed, then the vast majority of head teachers do not deserve their salaries. I would go even further and argue that a number do not deserve to be in a post at all.

But when the Education Select Committee at the Commons asked me what should be done about senior teams who do not do their jobs properly and I answered: “Well… we should fire them…”, the MPs from all three parties twisted uncomfortably in their seats.

One could barely stutter a response. Others hung their heads to hide their embarrassment at how inappropriate my answer was. I caused such a scandal that my words ended up in several newspapers. “Katharine Birbalsingh says teachers should be fired!”

And I still don’t understand what the problem is. If you don’t do your job properly, and your organisation is failing because of your poor leadership, isn’t it obvious that you should be fired?

Senior teachers should not be paid less. Their jobs are the most important, most challenging and most exhilarating on the planet. Our future as a nation depends on them.

Why on earth would we want to reduce the status and appeal of such positions by decreasing their salaries? It is already hard enough to find good head teachers. The point is that senior teachers should do their jobs well and be held to account. We should give them incentives to ensure our children and schools are top class.

The public are right to be outraged and question teachers’ pay – because they aren’t getting value for their money.

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About jonjayray

I am former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody

NOTE: I update this blog daily at roughly the same time every day (around midnight, Eastern Australian time or 2pm GMT) so if there are no recent posts long after the usual time for them to go up, it will almost certainly be due to one of the service interruptions that Wordpress (hosts of this blog) sometimes undergoes. In that case, however, all is not lost, as I will put up mirror sites of the blog if I become aware of the service outage. Go to either here or here to find another copy of what should be up on this blog. Note however that I no longer update the mirror sites daily. Service outages are as far as I am aware now too rare to justify that

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

As a socialist organization, it is no surprise that the NHS comes second only to the Nazis and Communists as a mass murderer. They have a truly Hitlerian contempt for "useless eaters". That the "useless eater" they are condemning to death might be your beloved mother or grandmother cuts no ice with them.
'

Some TERMINOLOGY for non-British readers: The British "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".

The BIGGEST confusion in British terminology, however, surrounds use of the term "public school". Traditionally, a public school was where people who were rich but not rich enough to afford private tutors sent their kids. So a British public school is a fee-paying school. It is what Americans or Australians would call a private school. Brits are however aware of the confusion this causes benighted non-Brits so these days often in the media use "Independent" where once they would have used "public". The term for a taxpayer-supported school in Britain is a State school, but there are several varieties of those. The most common (and deplorable) type of State school is a "Comprehensive"

Again for American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

Consensus. Margaret Thatcher in a 1981 speech: "For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word "consensus."... To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?

For my sins I have always loved G.B. Shaw's witty comment: "No Englishman can open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him". But Shaw was Irish, of course.

Britain has enormous claims to fame -- most of which the 1997 to 2010 Labour government did its best to destroy. But one glory no-one can destroy is British humour. And if you don't "get" British humour, your life is a dreary desert indeed. A superb sample here

Here is a link to my favourite British political speech since WWII. It is by Nigel Farage, the Leader of the UK Independence Party. He is referring to the Fascistic decision by the EU parliament to act as if their huge new "constitution" had been approved by the voters when in fact majorities in France, Ireland and Nederland (Holland) have rejected it at the ballot box. He points out that abuse is all they have to offer when he points out the impropriety of their actions.

Farage's expression, "A complete shower" is British slang meaning a group of completely incompetent and useless failures. It originated in the British armed forces where its unabbreviated version was "A complete shower of sh*t".

Britain appears to be the first country where anti-patriotism gained strong hold. Even Friedrich Engels (the co-worker with Karl Marx who died in 1895) was a furious German patriot. Much of the British elite were anti-patriotic from the early 20th century onwards, however. The "Cambridge spies" (from one of Britain's two most prestigious universities) are a good example of that. Although Cambridge appears to have been the chief nest of spies-to-be in Britain of the 30s, however, Oxford was also very Leftist. In 1933 (9th Feb.) the Oxford Union debated the motion: "This House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country". The motion was overwhelmingly carried (275 to 153).

I have an abiding fascination with the Church of England. It is the sort of fascination one might have for a once-distinguished elderly relative who has gone bad and become a slave to the bottle. But nothing I can say about the C of E (which these days seems to stand for The Church of the Environment) could surpass what the whole of English literature says of it -- which ranges from seeing it as a collection of nincompoops and incompetents to seeing it as comprised of evil hypocrites. Yet its 39 "Articles of Religion" of 1562 are an abiding and eloquent statement of Protestant faith. But I guess that 1562 is a long time ago.

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could well have been thinking of modern Britain when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

My academic background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here